


Control of the Present

by 1_jew_in_a_room



Series: Hair One Shots [2]
Category: Hair - MacDermot/Rado/Ragni
Genre: Berger deals with being alone, Drug Use (Marijuana), One Shot, Sort of a character study, mostly self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22376632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1_jew_in_a_room/pseuds/1_jew_in_a_room
Summary: Now he feels dull. Lonely Berger. Antsy Berger. Sleepwalking Berger. This is why Berger likes people. When he’s alone he has so much energy but nothing to bounce it off of. He feels like he’s walking in a dream that he can’t figure out how to wake up from.
Series: Hair One Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610740
Kudos: 3





	Control of the Present

Berger does best with an audience. When he’s with people, he’s golden and rainbow and bright. Even if it’s just one person, that’s fine by him. He just needs that spark to get him going. But, try as he might to surround himself with people, there are times when he’s left alone. When he was younger he ended up alone much more often but now that he has the tribe it’s much less of a problem. He can almost always get at least one of them to stay the night with him. Sometimes he can even get Claude to stay out with him. On nights when Sheila’s roommate is out she sneaks him in and he spends the night in her warm, comfortable bed. 

Tonight is not one of those nights, though. Tonight is one of the rare nights that Berger is left on his own. Claude is in one of his moods and insisted that he needed to be alone - not even the promise of good pot and crashing under the stars got him to stay - so that option’s a bust. Sheila is still a little freaked about the last time he ‘slept over’ and her roommate unexpectedly came back. Apparently she got pretty worked up over it, although Berger can’t really understand why. The rest of the tribe has already paired up by the time he’d come back from his walk through Times Square. He likes the energy he can feel there but hates it at the same time, and that duality interests him. He’s a fan of intense feelings no matter if they’re good or bad or a little mix of both. He just likes to experience. 

But now he feels dull. Lonely Berger. Antsy Berger. Sleepwalking Berger. This is why Berger likes people. When he’s alone he has so much energy but nothing to bounce it off of. He feels like he’s walking in a dream that he can’t figure out how to wake up from. It almost reminds him of a bad trip, but he’d even take that over the hollow feeling that comes over him. At least that feeling is intense. This feeling is just silent and loud at the same time. What’s the point of living if you’re not feeling? Sometimes he wonders if this is what Claude feels when he gets all moody and pity overtakes him for a while. The aquarius has so many times when he gets stuck like that. He thinks too much. Everyone thinks too much.

Berger tries to think as little as possible. Berger’s all about feeling. It’s way better. Why walk when you can dance? Why think when you can feel? Why be sober when you can be high? He loves being stoned, whether it’s on pot or acid or anything else. Sometimes he’s just high on life and it’s good enough for him. Nobody can stop him and nobody can slow him down. The times when he really thinks about it, he comes to the conclusion that nothing really matters at all. If everything matters then nothing does and that’s a beautiful thing. He can do anything! 

But now that he’s alone with the hollow feeling all he can do is think. He wanders through the darkening city as he thinks and thinks. He thinks about Claude and how much he thinks. He thinks about Sheila and how much she cares. He thinks about Woof and how much he loves. What does he do? He feels. Except when he can’t. Does Claude ever have times when he can’t think, or times when Sheila can’t care, or when Woof can’t love? There must be. But maybe it’s nice sometimes to stop thinking and caring and loving. It’s freeing when Berger stops thinking and even more freeing when he stops caring. Sometimes it’s even freeing when he stops loving. It’s just empty when he stops feeling, though. He feels bare. Not the freed feeling of nakedness - like his skin has been stripped away too and his flesh is exposed in places it shouldn’t be. 

He takes a drag from his joint but it doesn’t really help - not tonight. The smoke just hangs in his lungs until he lets it out. It looks fake as it writhes through the air. He should find somewhere to sleep. He’ll find himself back with the tribe tomorrow. He could go under a bridge or camp out in Central Park under the stars like he’d promised to Claude they’d do. Doing it without him felt a little odd, though, so he elects to simply keep wandering until he finds a place to crash. 

Berger hardly ever thinks seriously about the future. That’s one of the biggest differences between him and Claude and Sheila. They seem to think about the future all the time. Berger’s much more of an ‘in-the-moment’ kind of person. Whatever he wants to do now, he’ll do now. What comes next is for future Berger to think about. The people at school told him that that was foolish. They said he was smart or bright or whatever and it was such a shame. Berger knows that they’re the stupid ones, though. Focusing on the future makes you forget to experience the present. Anybody can change the future, but it takes a special kind of person to change the present. Berger knows how to change the present. He knows how to make it bright and colorful or hot or cold or soft or sharp. He knows how to make people hurt or heal or feel amazing or terrible  _ right now _ . How can you do that when you’re too busy looking way in the distance? The trees and the birds and the bees and the butterflies are all hanging around him. Why would he look somewhere else? Why would they try to make him? Nobody can take his present away from him.  _ Nobody _ . 

Suddenly he’s all hot and angry. Antsy. He has so much energy and nobody to show it to. He feels like running into traffic or hugging strangers on the street or stripping naked and jumping in the fountain. Anything to make something happen. He’s so tired of nothing! Nothing’s been happening for what feels like hours! He gets bored so easily. He takes one final drag on the remainder of his joint and almost burns his fingers but he doesn’t mind the heat. It feels nice. It matches the boiling feeling he has inside. This is good. This he can work with. He snuffs out the butt and tosses it. He feels like running, so he does. 

He runs with his arms in the air and his eyes barely open. He feels like he’s flying - or he would if his legs didn’t pound with the impact on the hard concrete sidewalk. He doesn’t pay attention to where he’s going but he ends up in the park anyways. In an act of defiance he hops up and climbs into the branches of a tree. Maybe he’ll sleep here like some sort of squirrel. The rough bark scrapes against his chest slightly but he doesn’t care. He barely feels it. Now he’s fired up. He calls wordlessly out into the night like a wild animal. Maybe he is a wild animal. He certainly won’t let anyone tame him. Some other night wanderers make sounds of protest at his ruckus but it doesn’t stop him. 

“I’m alive, baby! I’m alive!” He’s not sure if he’s assuring himself or proving it to someone else. He doesn’t think about it. “I’m a free thought!” He doesn’t even know what he means when he says that. He doesn’t need to. It just feels right to say.

“Shut up!” Comes the familiar answer. It doesn’t matter to him what other people think. He’s alive. He’s big. He’s hot. He feels like he’s 800 miles up in the air. This tree’s an elevator. He loves it. He hugs the branches and the trunk and finally finds a comfortable nook in the tree to rest himself in. Maybe he’ll fall or get woken up by the police. That’s for Future Berger to think about, though. 

Sleep always takes Berger suddenly and forcefully. He doesn’t gently drift like Sheila or climb the hill to sleep like Claude. He’s like Woof. The rug gets pulled from under him and he falls asleep. He’s a deep sleeper, too. Like a statue. He dreams about a different him, with a suit and a tie and a short haircut. It looks grotesque and even the Not Berger can feel it. He shoves Not Berger and laughs. 

“Wake up, you corpse! Life is passing you by while you worry about the wrinkles in your shirt. Where’s your spirit at, man?” Slowly more and more people file around Not Berger but they’re all as empty as he is. They’re not people, they’re cardboard. They’re paper mache. Berger shrugs and, though he longs for people, turns away.  _ They’re not people,  _ he reminds himself.  _ They’re just a lot of lies. _ For awhile he wanders away from them in the search for real people. Finally he comes to the park and sees his tribe. Relief floods him momentarily but it’s fleeting. All their backs are turned and he isn’t sure why. He calls out to them but they can’t hear him. He feels like he’s falling maybe. He doesn’t like this dream. 

_ “Am I going to end up alone?”  _ He doesn’t consciously think it, it just comes to him. He  _ really _ doesn’t like this dream. That’s for Future Berger to think about. He has the tribe. He’s not stupid - he knows this can’t last forever. So what if it doesn’t? That’s for Future Berger to think about. For now he has Claude and Sheila and Woof and Jeanie and Hud and Crissy and everyone. That’s all that matters.  _ That’s all that matters. _

He wakes up in the tree with the daylight falling all around him. At first he’s barely awake but then, like normal, he snaps back to reality. He hates that dream. Shuffling below him alerts that somebody is under him. A lot of somebodies. He looks down and Claude is reaching up to him, his hands like the hands of an angel. The rest of the tribe surrounds him, reaching out as well.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Sleeping, babe, what does it look like?”

“You could fall.”

  
  
“But I didn’t.”

“Just get down here, man. It’s nice out. We wanna be with you.”

Berger hums, thinking about it. Does he want to come down from the tree? It is nice up here. But they all seem so nice down there too.

“I’ll jump and you catch me.”

“Berger- no!” But Claude’s protest, laced with laughter, goes unheard. The young hippie leaps from the embrace of the tree into the open air. Now he really feels like he’s flying and Jesus, does it feel good. Finally he’s caught in the warm laughing embrace of his tribe. His people. The jittery buzz he’s been feeling has a place to go now. Now he has an audience. His favorite audience.  _ Maybe I’ll end up alone, but for now I have my people around me. It’s time to take control of the present again. _ He grins as they put him upright and starts to walk. He leads the pack with Claude next to him, daisies in his long hair. Things are as they should be again. For now at least he doesn’t have to think about letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I'm not entirely sure how my characterization of Berger is - it may have been a little OOC. I just can't imagine Berger doing well on his own and I wanted to explore that. 
> 
> Any comments are greatly appreciated!


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